Coloring walkthrough

I will try to be as descriptive as possible but if you got any questions don't hesitate to ask!

#1- Rough sketch, trying to figure out angles and anatomy.

#2- Secondary sketch done. In this step I flip the canvas a lot to help me get the perspective just right.

#3- A third sketch to really make sure I'm satisfied with the anatomy, but I still ended up changing the angle on the paw of the right arm when I began lining. Expression on Riki changed to look at the viewer instead of forward.

#4- Lines done using a hard brush on full opacity. A lot of the lines on the head and body will be erased later during the painting process, I only line them to help me with laying down the muscles and shading later.

#5- I often have a character palette contain three shades of one color, and I block the colors in of the character using the middle tone of those three. The cream parts are painted on a separate layer so that I can later shade and color it without messing up other colors.

#6 & 7- Painting and shading is done on the same layer. I block the shading in using the darkest tone the color palette. The shading is blended in with the rest of the color using the Mixer Brush Tool on a soft brush. Once that is done I use the lightest tone of the palette and add the "true" coat color. Same Mixer brush is used to carefully blend it in with the other colors.

#8- Once the coloring is done, I begin to do the finishing touches, adding eye color, nose and pawpads. The glimmer in the eye is painted on a layer above the lines.
I finally lock the line layer so that I can color it in the same color as the character, using a brush on 20-30% opacity so that the lines don't completely blend in with the colors.

To get the brushes I used for this drawing download this pack https://www.patreon.com/posts/my-painting-ps-17968960
Brush #66 in that pack is the one I use for lining. #100 is the one I use for coloring (first brush in the set), on a Transfer-Minimum setting of 80%